We are four girls (Mayumi, Georgina, Anna and Donna) traveling to the Philippines on the 8th of September. As Mayumi's mother was born and raised in the Philippines, she spent her life contributiing to the local communities there. We want take this chance to do our share in helping the ones in most need.
As the poorest women in Manila cannot afford to give labor in hospitals or to hire a midwife, many children are left without birth certificates. These birth cerficates are necessary to enroll in any form of education and is therefore crucial for the child's future. Without the birth certificates there is no possibility for these children to escape the poverty trap within the slums of Manila when they grow up.
For this cause we want to raise money in order to provide a future for as many children as possible by funding their birth certificates. There are already many initiatives that provide free educaiton, however without birth cerfiticates the children are not granted with the opportunity of any prospects.
The cost of one birth certificate is around €10, and every contribution, is it a quarter/half/whole or a few would be of massive help for the future of these communities. Together with the Bukas Palad foundation, we will ensure that the money is directly invested in the cerfiticates. We will personaly visit the slum to help with the livelihood project and meet the people of the community. As the four of us have enjoyed extensive education we are aware of the great of importance of personal development that education has to offer.
You can follow our journey and visits to the community:
Thank you so much in advance.
Kind regards,
Anna, Donna, Georgina and Mayumi

Last Friday we visited the communities of the Bukas Palad situated in Quezon City. Here we met Tess, who is the manager of this location. After discussing the process of the birth certificates we found that there are three main steps that should be taken. Firstly, the NSO (national office) should check if the child indeed does not have a birth certificate. With a negative result, the church shows the child has not been baptised. After this the birth certificate process shall begin by applying for one at the Quezon city hall. There is a huge difference in price (...)

Yesterday we visited the Bukas Palad Foundation for the first time. We had a meeting with the managers in charge of the 8 projects Bukas Palad takes on, in the Pasay region. Bukas Palad is situated in 5 different locations throughout the Philippines. In this particular location we could see the health project they set up, the livelihood project, the educational project, the nutritional project and we met two social workers that are responsible for the scholarships to children. It was amazing to be able to see the people in action and hear about all the amazing accomplishments this (...)